Tom Harris, also known as The Hill Country Gardener, is a Master Gardener certified by the State of Texas, a Master Pruner certified by the San Antonio Botanical Garden, and a founder and volunteer for the Gardening Volunteers of South Texas (GVST).

Note: This is an mySA.com City Brights Blog. These blogs are not written or edited by mySA or the San Antonio Express-News. The authors are solely responsible for the content.

Rain and Grass

The rain total at my house is a little over 10 inches of rain in the last two weeks. I’m sure your total is close to that. With that in mind, it’s important to turn off the sprinkler system. If you don’t know how, just punch the “off” button in the control box and that will turn it off. You probably won’t need it for several weeks now.

Rain sure does make the grass grow, though, doesn’t it? My Bermudagrass was green in two days and I’ve already mowed it twice. I thought I was finished with lawn mowing until the rains showed up. Whatever.

Be sure to keep the grass mowed so that you don’t have to remove more than about one-third of the blade when you cut it. And, wait until the grass is dry before you mow it; it’ll keep it from clumping up and help keep the bottom of the lawn mower cleaner.

Speaking of mowing reminds me of lawn mowers and getting them ready for the winter. The first thing you need to do is be sure your gasoline can has some stabilizer in it. It keeps the gasoline from gunking up the carburetor or fuel injector.

Flowering Perennials

You can divide perennials like daylily and iris now. Dig them up. Split up the bulbs or rhizomes (large underground roots). Give half of them to your neighbors and friends. Add some compost and fertilizer to the bed. Replant them at the same depth they were. Mulch the daylilies, but not the irises.

The Lawn

If you’ve been thinking about re-doing the lawn, you’ve waited just a little too long to do it now. Refurbishing a lawn is supposed to be finished about 6 weeks before the first frost. Our first frost occurs around here somewhere between November 1 and 15. So, if you want to take and chance and put down that new sod, you better get a move on because your window is almost closed.

When replacing sod, be sure to kill off all the weeds and old grass first. Add 2-3 inches of compost and work it into the existing soil with a tiller. Roll the soil with a lawn roller to pack it down just a little and then lay the sod on top in a brick-wall pattern so that you don’t have seams lining up.

Start watering twice per day for about the first 10 days or until you can definitely see new grass growing. Then you can back off on the water to once every other day for a week or so, and then back off to once per week for a couple of weeks, and finally water once per month if it doesn’t rain. If it rains, wait a couple of weeks to water again.

Notice the word “fertilizer” doesn’t appear here. If you feel you really MUST fertilize your new lawn, wait until the latter part of October and be sure to apply a “winterizer” fertilizer (it will say that on the bag). DO NOT apply more than the directions on the bag tell you to; that’s not only wasting time and money, there’s a good chance the excess will get into the aquifer. Personally, I don’t want to drink that. I don’t think you do, either.

Brown patch is the disease where you begin to see round, brown patches in the grass and the circle spreads outward. Eventually the green starts coming back in the center of the spot and, usually by next spring the whole circle is filled in again. You can tell if you have brown patch by grabbing a handful of grass and pulling. If it comes right up but no roots come with it, you probably have brown patch. The fungus doesn’t kill the roots and stems, only the base of the leaves.

Lawns that get too much water or have too much high-nitrogen fertilizer are the ones showing brown spot at this time of year. Applying a good chemical fungicide will help the problem, but it doesn’t solve the problem. The problem is usually a low spot in the yard that holds excess moisture from the sprinkler. The solution to this is to gently raise the level of the low spot with a top dressing containing compost and sand. Just apply about a half-inch or so and wait until the grass grows up through it, and then add another half-inch. Keep doing it until the spot is level with the rest of the yard around it.

Please leave the grass clippings on the yard when you mow. They decompose by next week and add back to the soil almost all the nutrients they took out of it. You don’t need to send the clippings to the dump. All the grass sent last year is still there–it doesn’t decompose when the plastic bags are buried. I’ve heard that 40-50 percent of all the stuff in most dumps in Texas is grass and leaves. That’s ridiculous.

Veggie Beds

Not much going on in the veggie beds now except that whatever you planted is probably doing very well with all this rain. Be sure to check out the beds periodically to keep the weeds at bay. If your tomatoes have little fruits about the size of your thumb, put about 2-3 tablespoons of fertilizer around the plant and water it in well. Don’t fertilize if the plants don’t have fruit, though.

Veggie List with Planting Dates

I guess I’ll just leave this little blurb about the veggie list with planting dates in here writing for a while. The requests just keep coming in even though it’s getting a little late to plant stuff.

The cole crops; broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, etc., are still available at some of the nurseries. It’s time, folks. If you want any of these cole crops for your fall garden, you’d better get a move on or they’ll all be gone.

So the offer of the veggie list for spring and fall gardening still stands. I’ve received well over 200 requests for the list in the last few weeks. It’s free of charge if you want one. Just write me at gardener@gvtc.com and I’ll send it right out to you.

Send your comments and/or questions to gardener@gvtc.com or see the website at www.thehillcountrygardener.com.